Half of Czechs Regard Dissolution of Czechoslovakia as Mistake

According to a poll, half of the citizens of the Czech Republic regard the 1993 dissolution of Czechoslovakia as a mistake, while 44 percent believe that the decision was a positive one.

“A half of Czech citizens consider partition of Czechoslovakia into two countries as a mistake, while previous polls showed that the number of those, who assessed that positively, prevailed. For example, five years ago only 36 percent of Czech citizens regarded the dissolution as a mistake,” company’s representative Martin Buchtik said.

A total of 54 percent of respondents negatively assessed the roles of then Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus and his Slovak counterpart Vladimir Meciar, who were responsible for holding the negotiations on Czechoslovakia’s partition.

The poll was conducted on May 26 – 26 with over 1,000 people having participated in the survey.

Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918 after the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The country was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1938 but restored in 1945 becoming a part of the Eastern bloc. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, a conflict between Czech and Slovak elites escalated, resulting in the country’s dissolution in 1993 despite polls that indicated a lack of public support for the partition.